Details for Paterson

I just saw two boys.
One of them gets paid for distributing circulars
and he throws it down the sewer.

I said, Are you a Boy Scout?
He said, no.
The other one was.
I have implicit faith in
      the Boy Scouts

If you talk about it
long enough
you'll finally write it—
If you get by the stage
when nothing
can make you write—
If you don't die first

I keep those bests that love
      has given me
Nothing of them escapes—
I have proved it
proven once more in your eyes

Go marry! your son will have
blue eyes and still
there'll be no answer
you have not found a cure
No more have I for that enormous
wedged flower, my mind
miraculously upon
the dead stick of night
Credit

From The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams. Copyright © 1988 by Christopher MacGowan. Reprinted with permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation.